Throughout history people have experimented with varying forms of government. Democracy as exemplified in the West has largely been trumped as the best recorded form, in that everyone’s vote counts equally and the majority l determines the result.

While this writer too advocates democracy over other systems, he is also mindful of its imperfections. We do not live, after all, in a perfect world, for human beings are imperfect. The Electoral College system intended to give states with small populations an advantage in electing representatives at the federal level can be argued as thwarting the concept that all votes are equally weighed. That is a discourse that can produce both pros and cons.

But the larger issue, I believe, is that when a majority or a sizable enough segment of the population is uniformed, or biased against other segments, or is easily influenced by glitz and glamour or rhetoric rather than substance, the results can be alarming thus throwing a tremendous curve ball in the process.

Both as a writer and as a citizen, I continue to champion democracy over monarchy, dictatorship, fascism, communism, theocracies, etc., or whenever the citizenry is not given the right to elect its leaders.

Today in America, the results of the last presidential election – however unpalatable they are for millions – is a vindication for democracy as we define it. But it is also a stark reminder that democracy too can produce devastating results and throw a nation and a world into disarray.

That is why I continue to salute the Founding Fathers and the great Constitution they devised – one which assures us that as fearful as some consequences can be, even in a democracy, checks and balances exist to protect us from extremism.

The separation of powers at the governmental level – the Executive, Legislative and Judiciary – and between the federal and state levels (the latter referred to as ‘federalism”), can help one go to bed each night knowing that as important as elections are in changing national and international dynamics, at least at home in America, we need never fear the rise of a tyrant who can get away with doing everything that he or she wishes to do.